


A New Life for Akechi

by demoncow97



Category: Persona 5, Xenoblade Chronicles X
Genre: Akechi Centric, Comedy I guess, Gen, I make fun of Akechi a lot, Spoilers up to Shido's Palace, Xenoblade X AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2020-07-12 17:42:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19950265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demoncow97/pseuds/demoncow97
Summary: Akechi wakes in a strange place with no memory of why of how he got there. One second he's fighting the phantom thieves in Shido's palace, and the next he's wandering around with a strange woman named Elma on a different planet. And things were only going to get stranger from there.





	1. Prologue

When Goro Akechi opened his eyes, the only thing that greeted him was a blurred blue light. It lit up the small space that seemed to hold his body trapped in a dull glow, but lacked the intensity to outline any details of the area. Speaking of being trapped, Akechi couldn’t seem to move an inch in any direction, managing only a slight tilt of the head. Where and why Akechi was here was a mystery to him, his brain feeling just as blurry as his vision.

Before he could even begin to assess his current situation, an automized voice rang out around him.

“Releasing hatch. Please stand clear.”

Akechi moved his head again in an attempt to find whatever part of this mysterious place seemed to be opening, but didn’t have to wait long before the front of his container slid open, accompanied by a blinding light. 

He raised his hand to shield himself from the brightness and allow for his eyes to adjust to the scenery. Drops of rain hit the skin now exposed to his newly revealed environment, awakening another sense that seemed to have been asleep until now. The rush of smell, touch, and sight felt almost new to Akechi in a strange way that seemed to jolt his awareness into overdrive. 

Akechi squinted until his surroundings began to take shape, and in the forefront of his vision stood a woman with long white hair and blue eyes. She showed no surprise at his presence, leaving Akechi to assume it had been her who’d released him from this strange prison.

The stranger took a cautious step toward Akechi before speaking. “Hey there. Looks like you’re all in one piece.” Akechi didn’t respond, trying to gather the thoughts in his still fuzzy mind.

Stuck in an unfamiliar place with no information or memory on how he got here, Akechi was going to have to play this right in order to ensure everything went his way. The woman didn’t appear to be hostile, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. 

Blind trust was for idiots. In fact, in Akechi’s opinion any trust at all was moronic. Trust got you hurt. Trust also got you friends, lasting bonds, and the ability to make a stupid team that went around stealing people’s hearts like they were some kind of heroes when it was AKECHI who should be acknowledged as the true hero all along, but he was getting off topic. 

In order to get through his current predicament, he was going to have use every tool and every person at his disposal, including the woman standing before him. Just another day for the great Goro Akechi!

First things first, Akechi needed to get out of this container. Being in a confined space with no escape route in the presence of a stranger who Akechi now noticed was loaded with some very high tech firearms seemed a poor position to be in.

Misjudging how out of use his limbs were, Akechi stumbled out of the pod, falling directly into the arms of the white-haired woman.

“Just take it nice and slow, okay? Your senses’ll need some time to reactivate,” the woman said with a twinge of concern. 

Knowing how important his first words would be in this situation Akechi decided to hold his tongue until he got a better sense of this person. She seemed worried for him, but it could very well be a ploy.

Taking a quick glance behind him, Akechi finally got a look at what seemed to be a giant space pod where he had been held captive. Had he more time, Akechi would have liked a closer look at the remarkable machine, but he needed his attention on the woman for now. 

Turning back to face the stranger, Akechi also took note of the environment around him. He seemed to be in some type of forested area, the green of the trees muted only by the natural darkness of night. The rocks he stood on didn’t seem quite as slippery as he thought they’d be due to the heavy rain. There was also some movement in the distance, but far enough away that it appeared only as dark blobs. Birds perhaps? 

Having made a mental escape route towards some of the larger trunked trees, Akechi finally brought his full attention back to the heavily armed woman. She met his eyes with a patient look, as if she’d been waiting to get his attention before she spoke.

“Your pod is the only one around that landed intact,” she began, as if that statement was supposed to mean anything to Akechi. “Good thing I found you. My name’s Elma. You wanna tell me yours?”

Akechi made a puzzled look with his face. The less this Elma thought he knew, the more she would explain to him. Akechi supposed this could backfire dramatically and end with Elma considering him deadweight and abandoning him, but more than anything he needed information right now, and as much as he could get.

“You don’t even remember your own name? It must be the stasis hangover…” Elma said.

Okay, maybe pretending to have forgotten his own name was a bit too fake even for Akechi’s standards.

“That’s no good. Just try and focus, all right?” Elma encouraged, giving Akechi the chance to make up for his earlier silence to her question.

“Akechi,” he answered simply. Elma hadn’t given him her full name, so he wouldn’t either.

Elma gave a smile at that, along with a “good job” meant to get Akechi to provide additional information. Akechi continued to analyze the woman. By the way she carried herself, and the heavy armour she wore, Akechi would not be surprised if Elma was a military officer, perhaps American. Although European was a possibility as well. 

Elma gave up on waiting for Akechi to keep the conversation going. “What else do you remember?” She asked.

Forcing a solemn look to cross his features, Akechi shook his head. 

Looks like Akechi’s new role this time was going to be an amnesia victim. It wasn’t too far off considering he had no clue how he ended up in that strange pod, but he remembered pretty well everything else up to his time in Shido’s palace.

In all honesty, playing the silent confused victim was killing Akechi at this point. His silver tongue and ability to manipulate people with his words were something he considered a strong suit. Akechi used his words as a display of his overwhelming intellect, a way to assert his dominance! Unlike those stupid phantom thieves who asserted dominance in some strange primal display they called ‘T-posing’. 

Akechi was getting sidetracked again. The phantom thieves had occupied most of his thoughts for so long that even now, in a strange environment and all memory of how he got there missing, it seemed impossible to rid himself of them.

“It’ll come,” Elma said, bringing Akechi back to the task at hand. “In the meantime, I’ll get you up to speed here as best I can.”

Yes! This is exactly what Akechi was hoping for.

Elma took a deep breath as if to start explaining, but took a brief pause and asked instead, “How are your limbs? Can you move?”

Akechi physically bit his tongue this time to keep any noises of frustration from escaping his mouth.

“I think I should be okay. I feel better than before, thank you,” Akechi responded, using the detective prince voice he had perfected over the past few years. 

“We’ll take it easy while you shake the stasis out of your system. One step at a time all right?” Elma reassured. “First things first – you’ll be needing a weapon.”

A weapon? She was going to give him a weapon? A complete stranger? Akechi wasn’t going to complain. 

With no hesitation, Elma reached behind her and grabbed one of the two guns strapped to her back and handed it to Akechi. Being careful to grab only the handle of the futuristic firearm, Akechi took the gun and strapped it to his back. Man, if Akechi had used this gun to shoot that stupid Joker in the head, it probably would have ripped through the metaverse and blown that smug look off his face. Maybe if he could convince Elma to let him keep it, Akechi could try it out when he saw him again. A boy could dream.

“There you go. All right let’s go,” Elma ordered, turning to start heading out as she did so.

“Wait! Weren’t you going to explain what was going on?” Akechi asked, not completely succeeding at keeping the urgency from his voice.

“I’ll explain as we move, standing in the rain isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

As much as Akechi would love to argue, he instead smiled his winning smile and said, “You’re right, show me the way,” and followed her lead.

***

Elma walked at a brisk pace, which was hard on Akechi’s still stiff muscles, but at least she wasn’t running. More than the fast walking, what angered him to no end was that after travelling for twenty minutes Elma had yet to say anything of significance. When she did speak it was to make sure Akechi was doing okay. And in his opinion, Akechi would be doing a lot better if he knew what the fuck was going on.

Ahead of him, Elma slowed for a moment before coming to a complete stop in front of a broken metal container. Aside from being completely trashed, Akechi noticed that it looked identical to the container he had woken up in.

“Most of the White Whale lifepods didn’t survive the crash… like this one”, Elma explained, as if the term White Whale was supposed to mean something to Akechi. “You’re one of the lucky few…”

Akechi considered himself many things, but lucky was not one of them. Not that Akechi was going to dump his tragic backstory on this woman. That privilege was saved for his close friends and arch enemies. And Akechi didn’t have any friends.

“Right- you don’t even remember the White Whale, do you?”

FINALLY! This is what Akechi had been waiting for.

“I’m afraid not”, Akechi replied, an apologetic look on his face. “I’d be interested to hear about it though.”

“You know, the L-002? The ship we escaped Earth on? You… remember Earth, right? It’s your home world, or rather, it used to be.” 

Okay Akechi calm down, deep breaths. It did make sense with the weird space pods and advanced weapons that he was no longer on earth, but that didn’t make any of this easier to process. No time to think, Akechi just had to listen until the end before jumping straight into psycho mode.

Elma didn’t seem to notice Akechi’s distress and continued with the story. “Unfortunately, Earth was caught in a battle between two alien forces… and destroyed.”

Whelp, looks like it was Akechi’s turn to have a mental shutdown. Earth destroyed? Aliens? How long had Akechi been asleep? None of this made any sense. 

The last clear memory Akechi had was confronting the phantom thieves in Shido’s palace. He couldn’t remember the outcome of the battle but considering how amazing Akechi is and what trash the phantom thieves are, Akechi was pretty confident he had won. But how had he gone from his father’s ship to a time where earth was gone and humanity shipped off to a different planet?

An arm on Akechi’s shoulder caused him to give an involuntary flinch. Elma seemed to give him an understanding look. “It’s a memory I’d rather forget, so if you don’t remember it’s okay.”

Taking a deep breath, Akechi nodded. Now was not the time to dwell on the past. He could solve this mystery once he was somewhere safe. After all he was the second coming of the detective prince! Even if he had caused all the cases he solved. That didn’t make him fake. That made him smart enough to play any role to needed to play. And right now that role was a survivor on an alien planet. 

“So where are we go-“, Akechi cut himself off when he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him.

He reached for his gun on his back, but grabbed some type of high tech blade instead. Akechi didn’t remember being given a sword, and while this wasn’t quite the lightsaber has had used previously, it still felt familiar to him.

Looking around, Akechi saw what seemed to be a massive beetle, the size of a large dog. The alien bug may have been more frightening had Akechi not previously seen some of Joker’s personas like Mara, which was just an enormous green dick on wheels, and something that haunted Akechi’s nightmares to this day. So, all in all this was pretty tame.

Akechi turned to Elma for direction. As much as he refused help from other people, facing an unknown enemy on an unknown planet might be the exception.

“I know, it’s been following me for awhile,” Elma explained. “I didn’t want to alarm you, but we’re going to need to defend ourselves.”

Elma pulled her own gun and took up a fighting stance. “Are you up for the task?” she asked.

Akechi answered by taking up his own battle stance, sword in hand.

Just like that the battle began. The bug hissed furiously, flapping its wings at a high speed as it approached Akechi and Elma. Elma jumped backwards and began laying a cover fire from the rear. It didn’t seem to be doing the bug any massive damage, but it slowed its movements a significant amount. Akechi took this as his chance and began swinging his weapon in clean strikes. After a couple of swings Akechi circled around the beast, attempting to get a clean shot from the rear. With the alien distracted by a solid shot from Elma, Akechi took the sword in both his hands and unleashed a swing at full force. This didn’t seem like it was going to be too hard.

“You’re not close enough to the creature, you haven’t hit it once!” Akechi heard Elma yell behind him. “You’ll have to get right in there with your blade, or if you want to attack from a distance use your gun.”

…well shit. Akechi was just used to the long range of his laser sword from the metaverse. He stepped in closer to the enemy with his blade raised defensively. Parrying a jab from one of the bug’s pincers, Akechi swung his sword in retaliation. This time he could feel the difference as it hit its target. 

Being this close to the giant pincers of the insect did cause Akechi to take a few blows to his arms and torso, but none of them hit his perfect face so that was a win. If he was going to rebuild his army of fans, he couldn’t look like some beat up homeless guy.

A bullet from Elma hit the bug right in the eye, blinding it, allowing Akechi to deliver the finishing blow. The creature went down with a light thud. 

Akechi panted and rubbed away the blood that came from one of the small cuts on his right arm. He kept his sword drawn though; in case another bug came along.

“Hmm, you’re not half-bad…” Elma commented. “There’s plenty of work back in the city for someone who knows how to handle a weapon you know. Or at least when you stop swinging at thin air.”

Akechi gave a small laugh but he would remember that comment for later. Because if anyone could hold a petty grudge, it was Goro Akechi.

However, that battle had only further proven what an important asset this Elma could be if used correctly. She seemed strong, smart, and clearly knew her way around this place. Akechi would have to keep Elma around for as long as he could, or at least until she wore out her usefulness. For now, he would have to make sure to stay on her good side.

“What kind of place is this city we’re headed to?” Akechi asked, trying to keep his disposition as friendly as possible, despite being very tired both mentally and physically at this point.

“We can talk more details later, for now let’s keep moving.”

Well it looks like it was back to no information for a while. And while this wasn’t ideal, at least now Akechi had an idea of what was happening. But with no destination anywhere in sight, it looked like this was going to be a long night.

***

This was indeed going to be the longest night of Akechi’s life. The forested mountain he and Elma were navigating seemed never ending, which may have been bearable, if they didn’t have to fight a million bugs, as well as other beasts strewn over this wet miserable land. Akechi was soaked from head to toe, in a mixture of rain and monster blood. He was used to having blood on his hands, but not in such a literal sense. 

Fighting bug after bug, having Elma yell at him to use all these strange attacks he’d never heard of, and being too late to pull off proper sword techniques in these quick time events, had him this close to losing his shit. But Akechi never lost his shit! Or at least when he did, no one else was around and he could scream in private.

After swimming through a small lake, which honestly couldn’t have made him more wet then he already was, Akechi and Elma began to climb a small hill.

“Are we there yet?” Akechi asked, and immediately cringed at the whiny tone of the question.

“It seems the rain is starting to let up. Just in time for sunrise.” Elma commented, seeming to ignore Akechi’s question. “Follow me, you’re gonna love this I promise.”

Akechi watched as Elma continued to hike up the path, and decided that with everything that had happened today, he sincerely doubted he could love anything on this planet.

The two walked another minute until they reached the edge of the high cliff. Akechi peered off into the distance but couldn’t see anything due to a thick fog covering the landscape. 

Squinting, Akechi attempted to spot this thing he was supposed to ‘love’. And unless he was supposed to love the fog so Elma wouldn’t be able to watch him swing his sword at nothing again, he had no idea what she was referring to.

But just as Akechi was about to voice a sassy remark, the sky finally began to clear. Sunlight broke through the clouds in bright rays, clearing away the fog as it did so. If anything, that reassured Akechi that he wouldn’t remain damp for the rest of his life.

With the fog gone, Akechi could finally get a sense of the area beyond the cliff. The land was filled with large green fields, pristine blue lakes, and enormous rock pillars, some of which were moving.

Wait, a rock pillar moving?

Akechi jumped backwards as he saw what could only be described as a brachiosaurus made of rocks and nightmares. It moved its neck slowly to the ground and began feeding on the grasses there, paying no mind to the vast number of other creatures filling the rest of the lands. 

Oh yeah, did Akechi mention that he could see even more alien creature now than before. And more bugs among them. Elma was right, Akechi loved this. NOT. Elma could officially join every other person he’d met on his ‘You Don’t Understand Me and Never Will’ list.

“Pretty wild, huh?” Elma asked, seeming to have been waiting for Akechi to make a remark.

“That’s one way to put it,” Akechi muttered.

“They’re all indigenous as far as we can tell,” Elma continued to explain. “We need to learn to play nice with these guys if we’re going to try and coexist together.”

“But I’m assuming we’ll still have to fight the ones that get too close.”

“You’d assume correctly,” Elma nodded. “We called this planet ‘Mira.’ You won’t find it on any star chart, but it’s our new home.”

“Home, huh?” Akechi said, mostly to himself. It wasn’t like there had been anywhere on earth he had considered his real home, so he was skeptical he’d find one here. But no use thinking about that, he’d have time to make plans once he got out of this wilderness.

“Recognize that Habitat unit?” Elma asked pointing to a huge ship not too far off. “That’s where we’re headed.”

Akechi had no clue how he’d missed the enormous structure before. The ship in the distance was a dull silver and was surrounded by what appeared to be large blue crystals. It was the size of a city, with a giant obnoxious ‘UNITED STATES’ painted on the side. Great, America… his favourite country.

“What path should we take to get there?” Akechi asked, as there appeared to be trails at the base of the cliff as well as the one they’d been travelling on.

“The higher road here would be the safer way to go, relatively speaking. The creatures down there are much stronger and more aggressive.”

Akechi nodded, looks the high ground was the way to go.

Or at least it was, until ten minutes later when Akechi took a misstep and fell off the cliff altogether. Which was funny considering the path was pretty big. Actually Akechi had no idea how he fell. It just happened! You know what, it was probably Elma’s fault somehow. Yeah, she must had done a poor job directing him, that’s it.

“Hey, you alright?” Akechi heard Elma ask him. It looked like she had jumped down after him, which was only right since this was her fault somehow.

“I’m fine, the fall hurt less than I thought it would,” Akechi replied, deciding voicing Elma’s error wouldn’t help him stay in her good books. “We should make our way back up, these monsters look a little too strong for us right now.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Akechi led the way this time, testing his sense of land. Now, leading and being looked up to? This was much more Akechi’s speed.

Sneaking around the foreign creatures wasn’t too terrible. They were almost spotted once or twice, but they never found themselves in any imminent danger. And after a couple hours of sneaking around the huge foes, Akechi finally reached the top of the cliff where they had been before. At least now they could start making progress again.

Taking out the smaller bugs and creatures in his way was getting easier as Akechi continued down the road. He had settled on a combo that seemed to be able to topple even some of the medium sized beasts, and left them open to gunfire from himself and Elma.

“I’m getting stronger,” Akechi said aloud, not quite fishing for praise, but wouldn’t complain if some came his way.

“You’re doing well, but make sure not to get cocky,” Elma warned. “That type of thing will get you killed around here.”

Cocky? Not Akechi. Had Elma not noticed what a great job he’d done leading them back up the cliff without encountering any enemies? This is why Akechi never got the appreciation he deserved. He could prove to Elma that he wasn’t just talk.

Spotting a large long necked reptilian eating from the tops of some of the trees, Akechi decided that it was time to test his abilities on a higher level.

Swinging at its legs to get the creature’s attention, Akechi began the one standard combo he’d been using up until now. Only this time, it didn’t seem to be knocking the creature over. This might be a problem.

“Watch your health!” Akechi heard Elma yell as he took a hard blow to the stomach, knocking him down.

Akechi tried to get up and start an assault from a distance where he could get some strength back, but before he fully got to his feet the beast stomped down on him hard. The pain he felt was intense and everywhere. The pain reached every inch of him. It felt as if he’d died.

Watching from the ground, having lost the ability to move, Akechi waited and hoped Elma would come over and heal him. And he kept waiting. And waiting. But it appeared Elma was just going to keep shooting the beast. What the fuck? This is why Akechi had trust issues.

Akechi tried to stay awake while Elma continued her assault, but he was losing strength. With one last push to keep his eyes open, Akechi lost consciousness. 

***

When he woke, Akechi recognized his surroundings immediately. It was the edge of the cliff he had been to already twice before. Looks like Elma had taken him and backtracked instead of just carrying him all the way to their destination. Did Akechi have to do everything around here?

“I see you’re awake. Feeling okay?” Akechi heard Elma ask. 

“I’m okay, thank you for asking,” Akechi smiled as he spoke despite his frustration.

“Looks like we’ll have to train more before taking on beasts like that,” Elma remarked holding a hand out to Akechi to help him up. Akechi had to suppress a scowl at the comment.

Akechi took the hand and stood, surprised by the lack of physical pain he felt. The healing here really was amazing.

“Third time’s the charm,” Akechi said, wanting to get a move on as soon as possible.

“Let’s try to make it to the city before nightfall.”

Making their way along the path once again, Akechi still stopped to take out any weaker foes in his path, but decided against attacking the reptilian herbivores this time.

The path was straightforward, with the destination of the ‘UNITED STATES’ ship in view the entire time.

When the doors of the ship finally came into view after walking and battling for hours, Akechi released a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

“Looks a lot bigger close up, doesn’t it?” Elma said. “And this was just the habitat unit. The White Whale was one hell of a ship. Until it all came crashing down at least.”

Akechi just nodded, exhausted from the never-ending battles up until now. Elma continued to explain, “This is the west gate. It’s closed off now for security reasons.”

“Wait, closed? We came all the way here for nothing?” Akechi demanded, trying to keep the extent of anger from his voice.

He swore to god if they had to backtrack somewhere again, the next thing his sword pierced would be Elma.

“We’ve repurposed a freight elevator that will get us in… side,” Elma said, hesitating and turning toward a smaller cliff to their right. 

Akechi let out a sigh of relief but quickly took up his guard again when he saw what had grabbed Elma’s attention. A large armadillo like creature stood atop the cliff. It had large claws and a thick bony spine that could be seen on the outside of its body. The creature let out a loud howling noise, before jumping down towards Akechi and Elma.

“Grexes? And they’re riled.” Elma spoke calmly, way too calmly in Akechi’s opinion.

And if that weren’t enough, two more of these Grexes appeared in the clearing, surrounding Akechi and Elma. But Akechi had had enough today.

Raising his sword, Akechi yelled “PERSONA!” out of habit, before charging the monsters.

The fight was over in less than a minute, Akechi having fought like the last pancake at breakfast was on the line.

With the Grexes taken care of, Akechi began making his way toward the gate when he noticed Elam wasn’t following him. He turned and watched as she shook her head.

“It’s a shame we had to settle near so much wildlife,” Elma said. “It’s important to know when to fight and when not to fight around here.”

Akechi merely tapped his foot in response. It had been way too long a day to start feeling bad for the aliens that had attacked them.

“All right let’s head in,” Elma finally said.

And if those weren’t the words Akechi had been waiting for all day he didn’t know what were.

Walking towards the gate, Akechi noticed real living people standing around, some chatting, some working on various pieces of machinery. But despite them being the first humans apart from Elma he’d seen since he got here, he was in no mood to make any conversation right now. There would be time for asserting his social presence in the group later. 

Akechi and Elma made their way up to the elevator she had mentioned earlier. It had no doors, letting Akechi get a final glance of the wilderness he had fought through to get here as it lifted them up into the habitat centre. The further the elevator lifted him off the ground, the more at ease Akechi felt. Akechi hoped he never saw another bug for the rest of his life.

With a jerking thump, the elevator came to a stop, leading Akechi to a railing overlooking a real human city. It had cars driving, high rise buildings, and even more humans. Had he not been fighting aliens all day, Akechi might mistake this for a city on earth. A really high-tech city on earth.

“We’ve finally made it,” Elma said. “We named this place after a city from back on earth. We call it New Los Angeles.”

“Welcome to NLA”

And while today may have felt like a journey all on its own, it looked like this adventure was just beginning.

NLA seemed an appropriate name for this strange city. But not because it was named after a place as stupid as Los Angeles. 

No, from this point on, NLA would be Akechi’s fresh start, where he could make his way to the top without any of his old problems holding him back.

NLA would be a New Life for Akechi.


	2. Adjustments and Tours

Akechi observed the city below, trying his best to take in the overall layout of the area. This would usually be a simple task for him, but given the amount of information he’d already absorbed in the last 24 hours, focusing on anything new was posing a bit of a challenge.

With all attention on his new environment, Akechi had nearly forgotten he was not alone.

“How about a quick tour of the facilities to refresh your memory?” Elma asked.

Akechi nodded, despite being positive he held no hidden memory of this human populated alien city. He also prayed that this tour would indeed be “quick”. Then again praying that his father would choke on his own spit had never worked, so with his luck this would be the longest tour known to man.

“Let’s start with your living quarters, follow me,” Elma said before turning and making her way toward a new elevator that seemed to lead to the city below.

Well at least if they were heading to what would be Akechi’s new housing, he could ask to get some rest before picking up the rest of the tour later. He’d never been one for naps, usually too busy contemplating his next move in the game called life, but some shuteye right now sounded like heaven.

Akechi followed Elma onto the elevator where she used some kind of ID badge to operate the machine. 

The ride down was smooth and silent. Akechi had noticed that Elma was the kind of person to never waste time with idle chatter and seemed only to speak when providing information or explaining the situation. Or perhaps she was acting professionally with him due to them being strangers. In any case, the quiet was appreciated.

A silence Akechi immediately missed when a new voice began to project itself across the city.

“Brave Citizens of New Los Angeles: Good Day. This is your director general, Maurice Chausson,” the voice boomed, demanding attention as expected of someone with the title of director. “Today, I once again come to you with news I am truly delighted to share.”

Akechi finally spotted the huge television filled with who must have been director Chausson. And if first impressions meant anything, then this guy was just as full of bullshit as any other politician.

“Yesterday, we repatriated 10 more White Whale crew members. These fellow pioneers will rejoin our ranks as citizens of NLA, bringing with them their skills and know-how, that will bolster our ability to survive and flourish here in our new home.”

If he were alone, Akechi would have gagged at the clear garbage coming out of the man’s mouth, but he wasn’t sure where Elma stood, so he kept quiet. 

Chausson seemed to continue to make announcements, none of which seemed worth taking mental notes of.

“Director general? Since when?” Elma’s question cut through the droning of the loudspeakers.

Now that was something interesting.

“Two days ago, ma’am,” a new voice responded.

“From political aide to director general in just a few weeks, at this rate he’ll be emperor by the end of the month,” a second newcomer added.

Akechi turned to see the owners of the voices, a serious looking woman with silver-blue hair along with a more friendly looking man. He couldn’t help but wonder why all these hard-ass boss ladies had silver hair. Sae Niijima, Elma and now this newcomer could start a club together. Although if Niijima knew people on this planet were fighting alien creatures instead of working as a prosecutor maybe she’d learn to relax a little.

“Irina. Gwin,” Elma acknowledged. 

Akechi said nothing, waiting for Elma to introduce him. Everything was still too new for him to jump into anything. Once he became accustomed to this new life, Akechi would build the optimal personality and blame his silent start on being new and shy.

“Nice work out there, ma’am,” Irina said in an almost robotic manner.

Turning to Elma, Akechi made his best puzzled expression to prompt her to explain things.

Elma seemed to take the hint, “Right introductions: Irina Akulov. Gwin Evans.”

That didn’t really clear anything up for Akechi given Elma had already said their names. Elma might as well have told him the colour of their socks, at least it would have been new information.

“This one of the survivors, Colonel?” Irina asked.

Elma nodded. “THE survivor. I only found a single pod intact at Starfall Basin,” she replied.

This brought puzzled expressions to the newcomers faces.

“Wait, what? What happened to ‘10 more crew members’?” Gwin questioned, anger in his tone.

Akechi continued to observe the interaction from the outside, although he wasn’t sure why this guy Gwin was so surprised. Nowadays those in charge never told the whole truth. Well it wasn’t exactly the same day and age Akechi was used to, but some things never changed. Including apparently his sleep schedule since it seemed like the tour to his living quarters had been indefinitely delayed. 

Perhaps the exhaustion was starting to take a tole since Akechi had missed part of the conversation and was now faced with an expecting looking Irina. Her intense expression was definitely waiting for an answer to a question he hadn’t heard.

Time to do what Akechi did best, slither his way through conversations he didn’t want to be having.

“I’m very fortunate to have such capable people here to help me readjust, I appreciate any advice you have to give” Akechi said with a nod.

He scanned Irina’s face for any trace that he’d messed up, but she seemed appeased by his speech.

“We three were part of the Special Operations Heavy Armor Training Unit… aka the “Skelleton Crew,” Elma continued with her introductions from earlier, to Akechi’s pleasure. “I was colonel and Irina a lieutenant- Gwin was a more recent recruit. Course, I keep telling them we don’t need those old ranks anymore now that we’re here.”

“You’re still colonel to me, ma’am. No reorg will ever change that, and that’s not about chain of command. It’s about respect. You’ve earned it,” Irina replied, voice and face still unchanged as when she’d first arrived.

“And the award for best ass-kiss goes to…” Gwin joked.

Akechi had to hold back an eye-roll at the comment. If Gwin thought that was ass-kissing then he had another thing coming. Akechi had ass-kissed his way out of situations more times than he could count, so if anyone deserved that award it was him.

Irina however, didn’t look too impressed with her ill deserved award, and with a couple salutes the two took off to other duties.

“We should be going too,” Elma told Akechi. “The administrative district isn’t far. That’s what you’ll be calling home- for now anyway.” 

At that, Akechi released an audible sigh of relief. As much as he was all for acting tough, especially when trying to impress a bunch of strangers on a new planet, even he couldn’t keep all his emotions bottled up.

Elma began walking once again which was now the typical sign for Akechi to follow. He followed her down a metal ramp, streetlights illuminating the way through the darkening roadways. Somehow the bright lights of the city didn’t obscure the sky like they had in Tokyo. The stars shone brightly here, and while he wasn’t one for astronomy, they were clearly arranged differently than those of earth. Who knows, maybe when Akechi fought his way up the ranks he could name a star after himself. Or maybe even a whole constellation!

The silence between Elma and himself made the exterior noises all the louder, and oh boy was this damn city loud. It wasn’t just the vehicles or machinery though. There was this strange almost hip-hop song coming from every direction, with no real lyrics but instead a mixture of ‘yeahs’ and ‘ughs’. Akechi wouldn’t consider himself a connoisseur of music, but regardless…

This song was unbearable. And he’d only been here a little over fifteen minutes.

Turning to Elma to ask how long this strange song would be looping, Akechi stopped himself when a large metal ship flew right in front of him, stopping him in his tracks.

Elma seemed undisturbed by the human-shaped plane that was sparking and clearly malfunctioning, crash close enough for the resultant earth shake to almost throw off Akechi’s balance. 

The thing that did seem to catch her attention was the bat-mobile looking car that sped past them, swerving to where the ship seemed to have just crashed. This had Elma running after the vehicle without a word. Akechi let out an exasperated sigh before following her at a brisk pace. 

Both he and Elma got to the scene of the crash just in time to witness a man get out of the what Akechi could now identify as a Mech, and throw his helmet in frustration.

“Dammit!” he shouted, not noticing Elma or Akechi.

Akechi didn’t know what the big deal was. He had caused tons of crashes before, and you didn’t see him getting pissy about it. Some people just couldn’t keep their tantrums under control.

Out of the corner of his eye, a young girl exited the car they had chased down and began analyzing some sensors on her arms. A single look at the girl told Akechi she was going to be annoying somehow.

“Look I know what exhaust smells like, and it was exhaust in the cockpit,” the angry pilot said to the girl. “Just check the duct, would ya?”

“Oh I’m checking. I just seriously doubt-” the girl began to speak, and it seemed Akechi’s intuition had been correct once again.

This girl’s voice was somehow the most annoying thing he’d ever heard, but not because of its’ pitch or anything, it just reminded him of something.

“Hey look at that! The intake/exhaust bypass is reversed,” she finished, and there it was.

Akechi’s least favourite sentence, _LOOKING COOL JOKER,_ made its way into his brain. He’d only been with those Phantom Thieves of Trash for one lousy palace, but Akechi had heard _LOOKING COOL JOKER_ enough times to almost break character and strangle that stupid cat then and there.

So of course this new girl had to sound _exactly_ like Morgana.

“Everything okay? It’s not like you to flub a flight check Lin,” Elma said, inserting herself into the conversation. “Good thing you had a rugged pilot like Doug at the controls.”

Now that Akechi looked harder at this Lin, she even looked like the mascot headed cat. Shiny black hair framing her face and big shiny eyes forced Akechi to rub his own eyes before he started seeing cat ears on top of her head.

“Oh hey Elma? How’d it go out there?” human girl Morgana asked, coming toward them. “And… would this be… one of the you-know-who’s?”

Akechi didn’t know whether to be offended by that, but he was going to be anyways since he was a petty bitch. 

Elma nodded in response to Lin’s question, face still stoic, making Akechi question how well the two actually knew each other.

“Cooooooool, I’m Lin Lee Koo- mechanic and top all-around fix-it gal for BLADE,” she continued, directing the introduction Akechi’s way.

“My name is Akechi, I look forward to learning from you,” he answered politely. As much as he’d rather never hear her voice again, it seemed like Lin was important around here, which meant she was a potentially useful pawn for later. Shit-talking the girl wouldn’t get him anywhere. Or at least shit-talking her out loud wouldn’t.

“So what happened with the exhaust,” Akechi asked, feigning interest. 

“Ah, well that… uh… doesn’t usually happen,” Lin said, scratching her face lightly in embarrassment. 

“We know it doesn’t Lin,” Elma reassured. 

Well if Elma had some respect for this girl, that had to mean something. 

“Look I know what you’re thinking,” Elma spoke to Akechi this time. “But believe me, young as she may look- and yes, she is young- she’s actually one of our top talents.”

Akechi nodded in response. Age was not something that limited a person’s ability in his opinion, so Lin looking young held no sway over his thoughts of her. He himself as an eighteen-year-old had already accomplished more than 95% of people would their entire lives. If anyone, it was the adults that managed everything that Akechi held judgement for.

“Anyways, you guys heading back to the barracks?” Lin asked.

Akechi would also like the answer to that question.

“Yeah. Why do you ask?” Elma answered.

“As long as you’re here, why don’t I take you on the transport? It’s a great way to see the city- I’ll give you the grand tour.”

The transport sounded great, and the tour would be fantastic if Akechi had access to some coffee or something. 

“That sounds like a great idea,” Elma agreed, not looking to Akechi for any input _he_ may have on the topic.

“All right Doug, that’ll be all for today,” Lin dismissed the pilot who Akechi had forgotten was even standing there. “You can clean up and dock your Skell. Don’t mind the exhaust, I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”

“Don’t mind it?! Wait, why am I cleaning up your mess in the first place? Lin? Lin!” the man, Doug, cried indignantly.

Both Elma and Lin ignored him and turned to walk away, which Akechi mimicked, leaving Doug to his worker duty. Doug seemed very low on the totem pole around here, so forgetting about him completely shouldn’t cause any issues for Akechi.

The two women led Akechi to a nearby square looking ship, which was probably the transport mentioned earlier. It was fairly large, about twice the size of a helicopter, and coloured the same gray as the streets of the city with the exception of a long orange stripe along its’ side.

Akechi boarded the ship without any fuss, sitting down for what felt like the first time in weeks. At this point even Joker’s shitty used couch would feel like the most comfortable thing in the world to him.

Lin went up front to pilot the transport with Elma at her side, getting ready for take-off. It was only minutes before they were in the air, leaving Akechi another sky view of his new city.

“Not bad, huh? You can see eeeeeverything from up here,” Lin yelled.

Well it wasn’t bad until Lin had opened her mouth.

“It beats walking that’s for sure,” Elma joked, surprising Akechi who didn’t know Elma was capable of any kind of humour.

“The best way to see NLA. I never get tired of this view… It’s like a different city every time,” Lin said fondly.

“It’s pretty breathtaking,” Akechi decided to join in, to make himself seem friendly. 

“It’s certainly come a long way in the last few weeks… but there’s still so much to be done…” Elma explained, a touch of melancholy to her tone.

“One day at a time,” Lin reassured.

“Speaking of which, we don’t really have time for a full pleasure cruise here. Why don’t you give us the express tour Lin, just the highlights?”

Lin agreed with Elma’s request and went on to explain the layout of New LA. The place seemed to be split into districts; commercial, residential, and the administrative where they were headed. Apparently the barracks where Akechi would be living was also located in the administrative district.

The layout didn’t seem too complicated to Akechi, but he was used to the chaos of Tokyo’s train system, so anything would be easier to understand than that.

The tour in the transport ship went by quickly, and before Akechi had even registered it, they were landing.

The administrative district seemed to consist of various high-rise buildings, including the one where announcements had been playing earlier. 

Disembarkment was quick and as soon as they were out of the ship Elma wasted no time. “Let’s get you over to the barracks. Then I should file my report. They’ll be eager to hear the details on how I found you, I’m sure.”

Akechi nodded and turned to Lin. “Thanks for your help,” he forced out along with his best princely smile.

“Oh it’s fine, I’ll come with you guys!”

Akechi’s smile tightened, trying not to show his displeasure at the news.

“Great,” he replied in a totally not sarcastic and completely genuine tone.

“The barracks are pretty close actually, they’re juuuust behind the giant BLADE Tower here,” Lin said, seemingly ignoring Akechi completely.

Akechi didn’t know what BLADE was supposed to be or if it was something he was supposed to know, but it didn’t seem like anyone was planning to explain it to him yet. If anything, it sounded like a dumb codename the phantom thieves would use. At least it was cooler than ‘Queen’ or ‘Crow.’ Goro ‘Blade’ Akechi fit him pretty well if you asked him.

In any case, Lin had been lying when she said the barracks were nearby since Akechi’s attempts to find the place had led him to more than fifteen dead ends in what was called ‘Armory Alley’. Why his companions weren’t giving him any directions Akechi had no idea. They probably thought he was an idiot right now, because he sure felt like one.

After a good half an hour Akechi finally found their destination.

The BLADE barracks were pretty similar to the rest of the buildings in the area. It was a large skyrise with a large metal yellow door at its’ centre. 

“Here we are,” Elma announced. “Consider yourself our guest until we finish getting you registered. Feel free to come and go as you please.”

Akechi felt some relief at that statement, but remained mostly warry in case this was just an attempt to make him drop his defenses. The only time Akechi had ever dropped his defenses was the “pancake episode” which had ultimately led to his plans going up in flames. So yeah, walls up at all times was the way to go.

“What is it I’m getting registered for exactly?” Akechi inquired curiously.

“I think I can answer that one,” a new voice replied from behind him.

Akechi had his hand on his weapon within seconds before he turned to meet an older stern looking man with a long scar running from his chin up past his lips.

“So… you must be our latest recruit,” the man continued as if Akechi wasn’t poised to blow his head off at any moment.

Akechi held the man’s stare and was about to respond when Lin cut in.

“Secretary Nagi!”

“Ms Koo. Chipper as always I see,” Nagi acknowledged.

Secretary Nagi seemed to hold himself similarly to Elma. All business and decently high up the totem pole. However, Akechi was having a harder time reading Nagi. While Akechi was confident at this point that Elma had relatively good intentions in regard to Akechi’s well-being, Nagi was a complete mystery.

So, until Akechi was confident enough not to get on the wrong side of the wrong people it was back to observation mode for now.

“What can I say? Pep is my middle name!” Lin joked, which Akechi fake laughed at in turn.

“More importantly, Elma- you found another one. Excellent work out there,” Nagi said.

“Just doing my job, Mr. Secretary.”

“Now, as for officially registering our new citizen here,” Nagi began, addressing Akechi this time.

“Why don’t we take things inside,” Elma suggested before the Secretary could continue. “There’s a lot of ground to cover- it could take some time.”

What happened to the whole, ‘Yes Akechi we’ll get you to the barracks so you can rest after being awake on a strange new planet and fighting aliens for like thirty hours’? Suddenly there’s _more_ to go over. Lin was pretty much female Morgana incarnate; couldn’t she tell them all to go to sleep?

Akechi decided it was time to give up on the rest thing, it was never gonna happen.

“That works for me,” Akechi said, even though it was painful.

“Ah yes, of course,” Secretary Nagi agreed as well. “Forgive me- you must be weary from the stasis and your journey back to us.”

Well at least someone acknowledged it.

“It’s no worry at all Mr. Secretary,” Akechi said, you know, like a liar.

The group made their way into the barracks building and maneuvered their ways through the halls until they reached a conference room.

No one else in the group sat down in the readily available chairs, so Akechi remained standing as well. They all stood around a large table, with holograms of different data displayed that Akechi couldn’t figure out.

“Allow me to formally introduce myself: My name is Kentaro Nagi. You may remember me as captain of the White Whale, but now I serve as secretary of Defense here for New LA,” Nagi explained.

Oh great, another person who thought Akechi remembered what was going on.

“He’s also our superior officer,” Elma added. “He’d be an excellent person to talk to when you’re ready to start looking for work.”

Work? Akechi assumed they weren’t really looking for detectives who solved their own crimes here, so it looked like he’d be looking for another profession. And it was also looking like this was another world that wouldn’t let Akechi live out the typical high school life either.

“What about a job right here with BLADE? He seems capable,” Nagi suggested to Elma, leaving Akechi as a spectator once again.

“Let’s give him a little more time- at least until he knows enough to be able to make an informed decision,” Elma replied.

Akechi would be lying that Elma sticking up for his choices didn’t multiply his respect for her by ten.

“He seems to be suffering from some form of memory loss,” Elma continued.

Elma then caught the Secretary up on the details regarding his memory problems due to the ‘stasis’.

“Well we’ve only been on Mira for about 2 months, so there shouldn’t be too much to catch Akechi up on,” Nagi assured.

And by ‘not much to catch up on’ Nagi clearly meant three hours of exposition about the advanced aliens who had attacked and destroyed earth, Project Exodus that had been humanity’s contingency plan, the damage to the White Whale causing it to crash on Mira, and using the last of the ships energy as a barrier for NLA.

Oh and apparently BLADE stood for Builders of a Legacy After the Destruction of Earth, whose main goal was to find the parts of the human containment stasis pods that had scattered across the planet, as well as many other sectors.

AND Akechi had to register himself, his assets as well as current health in order to get proper access in NLA.

Akechi’s neck hurt from nodding so many times at all the explanations.

Don’t get him wrong, it was all important and he absorbed all the new information, he was a prodigy after all. But the more he heard about everything, the more real everything seemed.

Sure Akechi had already accepted everything that had happened but that didn’t mean all of it was easy to digest.

Before he knew it, Akechi was saying his thank-yous and farewells to the Secretary, with Lin and Elma leading him out of the barracks and back into the administrative district.

“You know Akechi, it’s not everyday we’re authorized to let a civilian tour the administrative district,” Elma informed him.

“Yeah, Nagi must REALLY want him to join BLADE,” Lin pitched in.

And that was no real surprise. Everyone wanted Akechi on their team. Even an Akechi who was still running information from an hour ago through him head.

“I’m honoured,” Akechi said, earning him nods of approval in response.

One of those mechs from before passed in front of the group while they spoke.

“Get a load of that Skell! Even the way they WALK… so cool!” Lin suddenly shouted enthusiastically. “Oh yeah, work it baby… Mmm-mmm-mm.”

This scene was so reminiscent of Morgana’s reactions toward a certain blonde model, that it had Akechi internally cringing. But Akechi could take advantage of the girl’s obvious obsession with these robots pretty easily.

“I’ve never seen anything so cool before. I’d love to learn more,” Akechi ‘geeked out’.

“Now THIS guy gets it!” Lin cheered loudly, making Akechi smirk at his own success. “Aren’t they just the coolest?! Just… everything about them! Yeah you know what I’m talkin’ about! Actually… I don’t normally show this to people, but I’ve been working on some Skell fan fiction… Hold up, I’ll pull it up here, one sec…”

Akechi had never read fanfiction, but he was pretty sure he’d make a much more interesting protagonist than a dumb machine. People would definitely write about how cool and smart and emotionally stable he was.

“Lin,” Elma said, stopping Lin in her tracks.

“Oh… Uh right… Sorry.”

After that Elma gave Akechi a brief explanation of what Skells were, which just boiled down to them being a standard Mecha from what Akechi understood. However, in order to pilot one, you needed to be a top tier member of BLADE.

“So whattya say?” Lin asked. “If you become a BLADE and work hard, I’m sure it’ll only be a matter of time before they’ll be begging you to pilot one!”

“Lin, we don’t want to pressure Akechi here into anything,” Elma scolded.

“But you’d have to be CRAZY not to join BLADE!”

Akechi wasn’t crazy, despite what some people would say. Specifically, the phantom thieves and a couple idiots on the internet, but those same people also called him a twink which was just as untrue.

Anyways, at the moment Akechi actually agreed with Lin. BLADE members seemed to have much more power than the rest of the citizens here, which was right up Akechi’s alley.

The two women continued to bicker about pushing one’s ideas on others, while also discussing another tour that they were apparently about to take Akechi on.

But he didn’t need any more time to decide.

“Actually…” Akechi cut in, silencing both Elma and Lin who looked at him expectantly.

“…I think I’m ready to join BLADE.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special Happy birthday to my best friend @whatsamatteratsu! 
> 
> And a thank you to all the readers out there! I suppose I should mention that I'm actually writing this while playing the game (and not at the fastest pace.)

**Author's Note:**

> A special shotout to my friend who inspired this. Thanks to anyone who read this shitshow.


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